WILLIAM DONALD SCHAEFER, Governor

RESOLVED, That the  Task Force on Mandated Health Insurance

Benefits report to the    Governor and the Legislative Policy

Committee of the General   Assembly on or before November 1, 1987;
and be it further

RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution be forwarded to the
Honorable William Donald Schaefer, Governor of Maryland, the
State House, Annapolis, Maryland 21404.

Signed May 14, 1987.

No. 13

(House Joint Resolution No. 42)

A House Joint Resolution concerning

Chesapeake Bay - EMPRESS II Project

FOR the purpose of requesting the U. S. Department of the Navy to
end the testing of the EMPRESS II project because of the
projected disruption to commercial shipping in the
Chesapeake Bay.

WHEREAS, Commercial shipping disruptions caused by the U. S.
Navy's planned high-voltage electromagnetic pulse generator on
the Chesapeake Bay could cost Maryland millions of dollars; and

WHEREAS, Commercial ship pilots have told the State that
they will not sail past the antennae that will discharge 7
million volt "pulses" because its power will damage electronic
equipment on the ships; and

WHEREAS, The U. S. Navy will discharge the "pulses" under
the Electro Magnetic Pulse Radiation Environmental Simulator for
Ships (EMPRESS II) from a barge near Bloodsworth Island and
Cambridge, Md. to simulate the effects of a nuclear blast on Navy
communications; and

WHEREAS, The U. S. Navy's study of EMPRESS II showed no
effect on people, birds, or marine life that live in the
Chesapeake Bay, but the study also conceded that EMPRESS II, when
in operation and under certain conditions, could cause shocks to
people sailing within a 2-mile exclusion zone that the Navy
plans to set up around the antennae; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, That the U. S.
Navy is requested to end all further consideration of using the
planned high-voltage electromagnetic pulse generator under the

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